


to my darling girl

by braithwaites



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: F/M, Identity Reveal, Letters, Love Letters, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:44:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braithwaites/pseuds/braithwaites
Summary: “To my darling girl,” Sadie said like she was announcing something on a crowded street corner, sound billowing from her lungs not unlike the red dirt on the road. She folded the letter in half and looked at Arthur, surprise flaring one of her eyes open wider than the other. “Pearson’s got a girl?”





	to my darling girl

Dust rose off of the road to Rhodes with every hoofbeat, filling the air with dirt that was red and chalky and thick in the throat. That didn’t stop Sadie Adler from rearing back, stiffening her spine, and beginning the letter with great gravitas. Nothing _could_ stop Sadie once she was determined to do something, even if Arthur tried his best to convince her to give Pearson some privacy.  
  
“To my darling girl,” she said like she was announcing something on a crowded street corner, sound billowing from her lungs not unlike the red dirt on the road. Sadie folded the letter in half and looked at Arthur, surprise flaring one of her eyes open wider than the other. “Pearson’s got a girl?”  
  
Arthur made a quiet sound at the back of his mouth and shrugged. “I don’t much pry into the man’s private life.”   
  
He shot her a grin that was only halfway opened -- a glint of a pointy canine and a glimmer of teasing light in his pretty blue eyes.  
  
“Are you sayin’ that Simon Pearson ain’t a catch?”  
  
Sadie gave a dramatic shudder, the puffy sleeves of her blouse trembling right along with her. “God, Arthur! If I caught a man like Pearson on a line, I’d throw ‘im right back, and you know it.”  
  
“Sure.” Arthur laughed and gave the reins a gentle snap, coaxing their horses along a particularly dusty bend in the road. “Since there’s no persuading you to stop, you might as well keep going. I’d say the damage is more than done now.”

Again, Sadie cleared her throat and returned to the letter, murmuring over the first few lines of greeting. There were the expected 'I miss you's and 'I hope you're well's. She didn't much care for those.

Reading this sort of thing might've been a bad idea. The words made her feel wistful and raw. She didn't want anything Pearson wrote to make her feel anything but anger and disgust. So, she kept skimming, muttering the words without any intonation or emphasis. It was as if she was reading a newspaper aloud rather than a love letter.

“I do not believe I will return to Blackwater until the new year,” Sadie read to him, her fingers curling curiously around the slip of paper. Pearson's handwriting was no better than chicken scratch, but there was something strangely endearing about the effort he'd put in. She gave her head a shake. _Anger and disgust_ , she reminded herself. “When I am able to return, it will be with enough money to make it through a hundred years, I assure you.”

Arthur cocked a brow at her. “Where d'you think he's gonna get that money?” he asked. “Last time he had money, he spent it all on seasonings.”

“Seasonings.”

“What?” He laughed, and the sound was fonder than she expected it to be. “You think he went into town and got a nice coat or a revolver for his trouble? Doesn't sound too likely, now, does it?”

The letter continued like that for a while. His sentences were far more formal than any she'd ever read, as if he was struggling to make her believe he was a poetic type. He told her just how much he missed her eyes – brown, like melted chocolate. He told her that every moment he was away, his heart threatened to break.

“At least once every day, I am filled with such a strong longing to be with you that I can barely breathe.” Sadie's lips pressed together in a frown. “I cannot wait for a time in our lives when I no longer have to miss you.”

Arthur glanced over at her. The road was empty, but somehow, it seemed like they were being watched, like the Powers That Be were watching and keen on ruining their day for the intrusion.

“Y'know, maybe you should just stop reading.”

One of Sadie's hands snapped up, forefinger held aloft as she read forward a few passages. She flipped the letter over onto the other side. “Ho-ly shit.”

Arthur leaned forward, craning his neck to get a better look at the words.

Not that he could read them at that angle, with Pearson's handwriting being the unholy mess that it was.

“What?”

Sadie held her hand there as she tipped her head forward, squinting at the page. When she began reading aloud again, her voice was slower than before, as if she was trying to swallow the words as she spoke them.

“I have enclosed a small bit of money for you and the boy,” she read. “Tell Samson that I love him dearly, and that his papa will see him again before his next birthday.”

Arthur blinked, and so did Sadie.

“Hoooold up.” He shifted forward on the wagon's seat. None of the writing made sense. Pearson wasn't much of a romantic about anything that wasn't recently butchered or floating. He sure as shit didn't have any kind of kid. They would know about that by now, wouldn't they? “Our Mister Pearson's got a son? Who's that letter written to again?”

Sadie picked up the envelope in her lap and turned it over, inspecting the name and address of the postmaster in Blackwater.

“Gwendoline March.”

She nearly slipped right off of the seat and fell to the dusty ground when Arthur very sharply and very suddenly snapped the horses' reins back. The shock on his face shifted into remorse in an instant, and instead of explaining himself, he began murmuring comforting words to the horses and patting them on their rumps.

“You know her?” Sadie asked, knowing that he must have. That reaction said a lot.

Arthur stared down at the horses before coaxing them forward again, much more slowly. “I know her,” he said, his voice painfully tight. “She used to run with the gang back when we were much younger. She's a school teacher now from what I hear, back in Blackwater.”

One of Sadie's honeyed brows arched high on her forehead. She didn't believe a wit of the distant tone in Arthur's voice. He couldn't hold the truth out at arm's length for long, not with her.

“You loved her, too, didn't ya?”

A muscle in Arthur's jaw twitched. He didn't say anything. He didn't say _no_.

“You haven't seen her since she left the gang, I take it?” Sadie asked, folding up the letter and tucking it back into the envelope with what seemed to be almost fifty dollars. “Not like our Mister Pearson. He's seen her plenty, from the look of things.”

“Look, just...”

Arthur gave his head a slow shake, the brim of his hat sending a half-moon of shadow over his lap. “I don't wanna talk about it, alright? Let's just get to Rhodes. Pretend this never happened.”

Dusting some of the red dirt off of the envelope, Sadie hummed her agreement and tucked it shut.

“Coulda gone my whole life without knowing Pearson had a kid.”

Despite the painful throbbing in Arthur's chest, he laughed. Sadie had that way about her. She was sharp as a knife, but that just meant she could cut through tension and heartache easily enough.

“Yeah,” Arthur said as they rolled into town, flanked by white fences and patches of emerald-colored grass. “Me, too.”

They'd both be finding dirt in the folds of their clothes for the better part of a week, but the truth of Pearson's life back in Blackwater would stick to him for longer than that. There was no wiping off regret with the back of your hand.


End file.
